Hacks for 5

Reddit user Mr. Squishy recreated the entire Game Boy Pokémon Red Version game in Vanilla Minecraft, i.e., a Minecraft server without gameplay modifications. Instead of using mods, he used 357,000 commands blocks—blocks that execute commands in the popular sandbox game. How lo ...more

Although John Chen of BlackBerry still sees Qualcomm as a partner, the chip maker and telecommunications company has just been given a preliminary order to pay BlackBerry $814,868,350 in royalty overpayments. BlackBerry no longer manufactures or designs phones, rather the com ...more

Hackers are good at what they do—some can even use the way you move your phone to guess a 4-digit PIN in five attempts or less. That's why most of us with compatible hones use the fingerprint scanner. It's just much more secure. Or is it? Researchers from Michigan State Unive ...more

Here's another workday distraction for all you social media lovers out there: Pasted, launching out of beta today on iOS, is a simple collage and photo editing app mixing iconic '90s imagery with a love of the The Shins. Founded by Zeke Howard and Ben Fogarty of Spruced LLC, ...more

Blizzard's Hearthstone was a rousing success with more than 10 million downloads on the Google Play Store. Not taking things lying down, Bethesda, the creator of The Elder Scrolls, has come up with a card game based off its popular fantasy franchise. The Elder Scrolls: Legends ...more

The Autobots and Decepticons are back as Transformers: Forged to Fight has soft-launched for both iOS and Android. Help Optimus Prime fight corrupted Transformers one on one to save them from their ruthless overlords, and have them join your cause, regardless of which side the ...more

Apple's music streaming service just got a major update on Android devices. The Spotify competitor has implemented some changes for users on non-Apple phones that have been available to iOS devices for some time now. Nevertheless, Apple Music users on Android should welcome t ...more

While clicking random links on the internet probably isn't the best idea to begin with, now you can rest easy knowing that your iPhone won't repeatedly dial 911 after tapping a malicious link in Twitter, Facebook, or other apps that use iOS's WebView. The links in question, w ...more

Android lovers out there might be sad to hear that a high-end version of the Samsung Galaxy S8+ with 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of internal storage won't be released in the US, but rather, in China. Yesterday, Samsung launched its two new Galaxy flagships, the S8 and S8+, at the ...more

Lyft is experimenting with commuter ride sharing by debuting a new "Shuttle" option, which offers pickups and drop-offs along select routes, much like a metro bus would do. The company is trying out the new option in San Francisco and Chicago, but if all goes well, we might al ...more

Bitmoji has experienced explosive success this year thanks to Snapchat. The app allows users to create their own personal emoji and send responses to other friends, and even though it's only two and a half years old, this customizable emoji app is growing at an impressive pace ...more

Oh, Waze—you know, that Google-owned traffic navigation app that tempts drivers into stopping at local food joints like Dunkin' Donuts and Taco Bell? Well, now you can even order a large iced coffee through the app before you even arrive at a fast food hotspot. Starting today ...more

Facebook Messenger has now incorporated a live location sharing feature, one week after Google Maps revealed its own real-time location tool. On Monday, the social media giant announced the new feature, which will allow users to share their live whereabouts with friends at the ...more

Earlier last week, there were a number of fake five-star WhatsApp reviews to be found on the Google Play Store. Now, Gmail, Chrome, Messenger, and Firefox are all the latest victims to be saturated in five-star spam that wrongly refers to the word "game" in reference to non-ga ...more

Based in the DC Universe, Injustice: Gods Among Us was a runaway success on the iOS App Store, generating enough downloads to rival its console-based iteration in terms of popularity. But now, the sequel to this long-running game, Injustice 2, is finally out in the wild, as it ...more

When you're an audiophile, managing music is a labor of love. Metadata, like artist names, album thumbnails, and genres, is attached to many digital audio files, though some of the songs in your library might not have such tags, and others may have missing or incorrect informa ...more

T-Mobile just unveiled two new services—Scam ID and Scam Block—which specifically target those pestering robo-calls that reach out to 2.4 million Americans every month. The FCC, the country's telecom regulator, proposed new rules on Thursday that would allow phone companies t ...more

The photo-centric Instagram app is a great way to share "evergreen" pictures and videos when compared to Snapchat and Facebook's new Messenger Day feature. But like all social media, keeping the account secure is an essential aspect, as it restricts unwanted viewers from seein ...more

During the last few months, WhatsApp's Google Play Store ratings have been tanking—all the way down to an average of 3.4 stars from the instant messenger's usual average of 4.1. Within the last week, though, WhatsApp has received thousands of seemingly fake 5-star reviews that ...more

Google Maps now allows users to share their location in real time and update their friends and family on their location and estimated time of arrival when making a trip. On Wednesday, March 22, the tech giant announced that this Google Maps app update for both Android and iOS ...more

A new app called Roadie now makes life a little easier by connecting users to people who can transport their stuff. The app allows users to transport anything from dogs to getting rid of your ex's things. Furthermore, anyone can register as a sender, or become a driver to make ...more

Thanks to Google's latest update to their Motion Still app, iPhone users can now pick a new frame for Live Photos. The app fixes everything annoying about Apple's Live Photos, and this is just another great feature to add to Motion Still's impressive features list. If you're ...more

In February, the popular Facebook-owned WhatsApp Messenger service jumped on the "stories" bandwagon and replaced their in-app, text-based "About Me" status (you know, those lovely little messages where you can say "Sleeping" or "Not Sleeping" under the tiny nub of your profil ...more

Google Assistant has introduced tappable shortcuts on the Google app for Android, iOS, and Google.com this week. The tech giant made the official announcement on their blog on Tuesday after much online speculation that they were integrating their screen search feature into th ...more

Google's personal messaging service Allo could reveal your search history and other private information to friends if the Google Assistant bot is called upon in chats, according to a story from Re/code. Allo uses Google's AI Assistant to bring smart information into your chat ...more

Xiaomi phones run a skinned version of Android known as MIUI, which, over the years, has been a popular custom ROM. One of the standout features Xiaomi has added to the mix is something called Quick Ball, which lets you navigate your phone by swiping inward from a small circle ...more

One of the biggest hurdles for making touchscreen text input easy on the user has been finding a simple way to move the cursor around. With all the advancements in mobile technology, we're still left fumbling around with tiny arrow indicators or magnifying glasses when we need ...more

Over a billion people use WhatsApp, which makes it the most popular standalone messaging service out there. But if you're one of the many people whose group of friends relies on WhatsApp for all communication, chances are, you have several years-long messaging threads with all ...more

Anybody who was around in the '80s and '90s associates Sony with music still to this day, thanks to their wildly successful Walkman brand. And that's not even mentioning their major label record company. Indeed, the Tokyo-based electronics maker/media conglomerate has music em ...more

The modern age of techno-dating has made an interesting landscape for social interactions when there is some modicum of romance (or lust). For those of us born before the internet evolved into the prolific monster it has become, we first met our love interests face to face. To ...more

Bitcoin, the decentralized cryptocurrency notorious for its status as the currency of the dark web, seems to be shedding its shady past and is now enjoying soaring highs not seen since 2014. The highly volatile online commodity reached parity with an ounce of gold back in Marc ...more

When it comes to ad blocking on Android, there's no better app than AdAway. The popular root mod filters out ads at the hosts file level, so no extra processing power is used, and your phone is literally incapable of loading most ads. But one thing AdAway doesn't do is get ri ...more

If you have stuck volume buttons, it can be a real pain to adjust sound levels since your only other option is to use the volume menu in Settings. But even if your volume rocker is working fine, it's still a little weird to have to click a mechanical button to control one of t ...more

Android is Google's project, so of course you can see the search giant's fingerprints all over the operating system. Aside from the obvious user-facing apps, there's Google Cloud Messaging, Google Connectivity Services, and the much-maligned Google Play Services running in the ...more

If your phone has an AMOLED display, it doesn't waste any battery to power black portions of the screen. This is because the individual pixels that make up an AMOLED screen emit their own light, which means the backlight you'd find behind a traditional LCD screen is not presen ...more

Now that Android Nougat lets you add your own custom Quick Settings tiles, your pull-down menu is probably getting a lot more crowded than it used to be, with all sorts of new and useful toggles. But the trouble is, you can only add up to nine entries before your Quick Setting ...more

Android is a highly customizable operating system. Sometimes, we use these capabilities to add core functionality or streamline the user experience, but there are other times when customization is just about having fun and making your smartphone's interface more enjoyable. Th ...more

Considering that Google makes Android, it's rather strange that the operating system doesn't have a baked-in solution for doing a reverse image search. Sure, you can long-press pictures in Chrome to search for other instances of a photo, but it's not possible with pictures you ...more

Emoji, emojis, smilies, or smileys—whatever you want to call them, those little yellow icons have firmly implanted themselves in the human lexicon. However, just like with localized languages and dialects, emoji can be very different from one another depending on the device or ...more

Android has separate volume levels for various system sounds like incoming calls, notifications, alarms, and media. This means that when you want to adjust volume levels for just one of these categories, you usually have to press the physical volume rocker, tap a button to exp ...more

If you have multiple Bluetooth accessories, Android's volume system can be pretty annoying. For one thing, most phones reset to a "Safe Volume Level" every time you reconnect a pair of headphones, which means you'll probably need to turn up the volume once or twice a day. But ...more

Android's notification system is quite robust, especially now that Google added bundled notifications and quick reply features to Android 7.0 Nougat. However, things can still get quite cluttered when you have several unread messages, which fills your status bar with icons and ...more

With smartphone makers ditching the headphone jack in the hopes of a truly wireless future, we're having to rely on Bluetooth devices like earbuds and headphones more and more. But the downside here is that these devices aren't physically connected to your phone in any way, wh ...more

Everyone loves sharing pictures and quick video clips with Snapchat, but while the service itself is tons of fun, the Android app is one of the worst on the market. For one, Snapchat takes terrible photos even on high-end Android phones. And to make matters worse, the app is a ...more

If your mechanical home button or capacitive navigation keys are on the fritz, doing something as simple as navigating your phone's interface becomes a tedious chore. In this situation, some users have turned to root mods that enable Android's software navigation bar to solve ...more

Android 7.0 Nougat brought a lot of multitasking improvements along with it, but the most notable addition is a unified multi-window mode (which shines bright in Google's Pixel phones). This means that every Android device can now use the same split-screen interface, and the d ...more

Ever since QuickPic was sold to a known adware company, there's been a glaring need for lightweight and fast third-party gallery apps on Android. For the folks that don't want to use Google Photos and other cloud-based solutions, a gallery app that loads your locally-stored pi ...more

Super Mario Run has been one of the most insidiously addicting iOS games to come out in recent years for iPhone. And now, as of March 22, Android users can get in on the fun, too. You can install Super Mario Run from either the iOS App Store (requires iOS 8 or higher) or Goog ...more

In recent weeks, thousands of Nexus 6P users have reported that their devices are shutting down with 30% or more battery life remaining. The phones won't start back up until they're plugged into a charger, so it's as if the battery completely dies even though there is plenty o ...more

Uber has recently been updating their app on a weekly basis to ensure that users have the smoothest travel experience possible. The entire UI was recently redesigned to increase user-friendliness, the total app size was reduced to improve performance, and an intelligent shortc ...more

Thanks to live-streaming video and social media apps like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, we're all on camera nowadays. Unfortunately, though, we don't have a script to work with when we're shooting selfie videos, so it's hard to come off as perfectly eloquent when you're j ...more

YouTube is a great place for all your mainstream audio and video needs. But you can't simply plug in your headphones, choose a playlist, and put your phone back in your pocket without subscribing to YouTube Red, which costs $9.99/month for ad-free and background playback. If y ...more

When Apple released the iOS 10.2 update to the public on December 12, 2016, iPhone users got a slew of new features, including new emojis, a brand new TV app, the ability to save camera settings, and more. But out of all of these new features, the one that interests me the mos ...more

Google Drive has a very simple way to switch from iOS to Android. iPhone users who want to take the plunge into the wonderful world of Android, but were hesitant to do so in the past because of the laborious process of backing up their data, can back up their contacts, photos, ...more

The beauty of Android is that nearly everything can be customized. But sometimes, we get so caught up in tweaking functionality and other minutiae that one of the most important interfaces gets neglected—the home screen wallpaper. Well, developer Gianluca Spadazzi has come up ...more

Google made an entirely new launcher for its Pixel devices, and it's got a lot of cool features such as a swipe gesture to open your app drawer and an entire home screen page dedicated to Google search. We've already shown you how to get this so-called Pixel Launcher on other ...more

Skype is one of the most popular messaging and video chat services for a good reason—it's packed to the brim with tons of cool features. But one bit of functionality that Microsoft left out is the ability to block friend requests from people that aren't in your contacts, which ...more

If your Android phone was made by Samsung, LG, HTC, or any other manufacturer that likes to apply skins on top of stock Android, then your camera app is tied to the custom gallery app that was preinstalled on your device. In other words, when you tap that little image preview ...more

One of our favorite features on the Pixel Launcher is its App Shortcuts, which work a lot like Apple's 3D Touch for iOS or Huawei's Force Touch. Instead of using pressure sensitivity to call up static and dynamic shortcut menus for apps, Launcher Shortcuts relied on a simple l ...more

Different times call for different ringtone volumes. When you're at work or school, you need your phone to be quiet so it doesn't make a disturbance—but when you're at home or out and about, the volume should be turned back up so you don't miss any important notifications. So ...more